Pediatric Points- my children as practice patients

[Kelly Donovan]

My 7 yo son Rowan has been begging me to treat him since day 1… I have no idea why, other than he saw how my relaxed my husband was after the 4 gates combination. Or maybe he is a future acupuncturist? I let him waste a few needles on an orange after our last webinar.

Ultimately I decided to trial a point at LV 3 which he tolerated well. Later on, I tried LI 4 on him and my 10 yo daughter Riley who was also interested. I used a J type Seirin needle size No. 1 (0.16 x 30 mm.)

They both had no problem with the needle, though not sure how therapeutic it was as a single point treatment.

I researched kids acupuncture, but mostly what comes up is education on acupressure. I see these points listed commonly; LI 4, ST 25, ST 36, yin tang, Du 20, PC 6, PC 8, HT 7, Sp 6, Lu 3. These all make sense to me…. however, are there certain points that are most helpful and well tolerated as a 1-2 needle treatment combination?

My children are healthy and I don’t NEED to practice on them (I have plenty of other willing friends!) But they are really interested and since they are willing, I figured I might as well help them.

I would be most interested in immune boosting combinations to protect against URIs this time of year along with points to help with getting ready for sleep/unwinding after a busy school day. It seems like they would tolerate LI 10-11 but I haven’t tried it yet.

Do you generally follow same diagnosis strategy with assessing for oketsu, immune, stomach qi etc? I know we talked about in kids that they may be some of the few that don’t have oketsu etc.

I know I may be jumping ahead of lectures, but I promised Rowan I would ask my teachers! Thanks in advance for any advice…

[Allison Bailey]

Hi! Just getting to some of these Forum posts:
My son was always open to acupuncture even when he was quite young, but my daughter is terrified of needles (LOL)!
The LI 10-11 area is a great place to start even for otherwise healthy kids. All our immune systems can use a boost especially this time of year.
Also after today, you will be able to go up and down their back, checking the Shu points and treating whatever you find.
I don’t treat a lot of kids in my practice, but I have seen some kids of friends, etc, and we see kids from time to time on our small group Zoom sessions and at the live practice sessions. I have to say that at least since Covid, we do see more and more kids with Adrenal differential diagnosis findings. Most likely your kids don’t have these issues, but I still recommend checking them. They can also participate that way in the diagnostic process.
If they are super into it, and not too shy, we usually try to get a pediatric practice group going in June, led by one of our faculty who treats a lot of kids!

[Author]

Posts